Grazing days

[upnortheast]

Sitting here watching the rain streaming down - again. Pondering the wisdom of a number of milk buyers who specify at least X days grazing.
Put in place I assume to appeal to the consumers bucolic image of cows grazing in the sunshine.
We are fortunate our layout allows the cows to come & go as they please & there has been numerous days this last 12 months when they have shown no interest at all in going out to graze sodden grass. Cows are going along nicely at 33 kg day (160 DIM ) with very good fertility.
Word on the grapevine of a number of "grazing" herds struggling with late turnout, unpredictable grass growth & quality resulting in disapointing yield & fertility.
Now I know this has much to do with location, type of land & farm layout. Some farms aim for 300 days grazing, others are grateful for 150 days.
If the weather of the last 12 months is the new norm, could setting targets for grazing days have a negative effect on cow welfare ?
Any thoughts ?

 

[jondear]

Sitting here watching the rain streaming down - again. Pondering the wisdom of a number of milk buyers who specify at least X days grazing.
Put in place I assume to appeal to the consumers bucolic image of cows grazing in the sunshine.
We are fortunate our layout allows the cows to come & go as they please & there has been numerous days this last 12 months when they have shown no interest at all in going out to graze sodden grass. Cows are going along nicely at 33 kg day (160 DIM ) with very good fertility.
Word on the grapevine of a number of "grazing" herds struggling with late turnout, unpredictable grass growth & quality resulting in disapointing yield & fertility.
Now I know this has much to do with location, type of land & farm layout. Some farms aim for 300 days grazing, others are grateful for 150 days.
If the weather of the last 12 months is the new norm, could setting targets for grazing days have a negative effect on cow welfare ?
Any thoughts ?

Well its that or put em in a shed 365 .I'm buggered if I'm doing that .

 

[Farmer Keith]

Sitting here watching the rain streaming down - again. Pondering the wisdom of a number of milk buyers who specify at least X days grazing.
Put in place I assume to appeal to the consumers bucolic image of cows grazing in the sunshine.
We are fortunate our layout allows the cows to come & go as they please & there has been numerous days this last 12 months when they have shown no interest at all in going out to graze sodden grass. Cows are going along nicely at 33 kg day (160 DIM ) with very good fertility.
Word on the grapevine of a number of "grazing" herds struggling with late turnout, unpredictable grass growth & quality resulting in disapointing yield & fertility.
Now I know this has much to do with location, type of land & farm layout. Some farms aim for 300 days grazing, others are grateful for 150 days.
If the weather of the last 12 months is the new norm, could setting targets for grazing days have a negative effect on cow welfare ?
Any thoughts ?

All about infrastructure which of course some have made no effort to put in place, in that case a set in stone target would initially have a negative impact on welfare. Not really an issue if they made improvements though, some pretty wet farms around here graze cows for a lot more days than any targets I’ve seen suggested.

 

[Kiss]

I always think the number of days grazing required are pretty easy in fairness, those who say they can’t achieve it probably haven’t invested in infrastructure.

this spring was definitely up there with one of the hardest.

these schemes always give it to you in one hand and take it on another,

for us probably on the early side to get a fair representation of fertility this year
Yes yield slightly down but cow health in general im happy with

Be over 120 days grazing already for milker (straight out as they calve)

Good and bad operators all systems,

be running cow mortality for the year so far is <1% that includes all of them calving in that period, no wash outs for fertility, probably only given rehydration/glycol to about 6 cows, no twists. And they’ve probably only eaten about 20/30kgs DM silage each since going out, cake junkies at the start

 

[lazy farmer]

No doubt it’s been a hard yr. but even in a hard yr it would be very difficult not to be able to graze cows for 150:days……

 

[Nathan818]

I could be wrong but I thought a lot of the grazing targets mentioned exceptions for extreme weather conditions

 

[celtis man]

Our grass seems to have a rest in July and then takes off again
So you find yourself feeding some silage to keep the cows topped up
Hopefully the weather will pick up to keep them grazing to make up for the late start.

 

[bigw]

No doubt it’s been a hard yr. but even in a hard yr it would be very difficult not to be able to graze cows for 150:days……

believe me you don’t know a hard year!

 

[Spudley]

I think our cows have been out in every month of the year, but they've been in in every month as well!

 

[Bruce Almighty]

Here in the middle of England (Warwickshire) you can only regularly rely on grass in May and half of June.
In a Spring drought that’s half of April and May, the grass has gone by June.

That’s why we’re switching to robot milking and cows in all year round.

 

[frederick]

Apart from barbers Waitrose and organic. Who else stipulates that all their farmers have to graze.

 

[upnortheast]

Think FM as part of their regenerative thing

 

[upnortheast]

I think our cows have been out in every month of the year,

Aye, we have a gate like that

 

[Spudley]

Think FM as part of their regenerative thing

It's part of the First Milk Pledge

 

[Farmer Keith]

Whilst there’s not many Dairy’s looking for it it’s certainly on quite a few of our customers radars depending on how they see things playing out, it remains to be seen if they want it from a marketing or a soil carbon perspective, perhaps both.

 

[Cotlandfarmer]

I'd have to check the correct wording but I think the Firstmilk pledge requires "access to pasture" for a certain number of days.
You could translate this as to just opening the gate for the required number of days.

In reality how will any milk buyer be able to check the number of days you let the cows out?

Tell them what they want to hear

 

[kiwi pom]

How do these 1000+ cow herds manage it, or do they just not have those type of contracts?

 

[Spudley]

What is the biggest truly grazing herd in the UK? Not just loafing in a paddock for 2 or 3 hours while their TMR gets topped up.

 

[In the pit]

What is the biggest truly grazing herd in the UK? Not just loafing in a paddock for 2 or 3 hours while their TMR gets topped up.

There’s a few 600 cow herds grazing ,must be one or two bigger

 

[frederick]

What is the biggest truly grazing herd in the UK? Not just loafing in a paddock for 2 or 3 hours while their TMR gets topped up.

Sansaw I believe is 1500 according to their website.